Nature in the Heart of England: A personal view of nature at the junction of Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire - also known as "Banburyshire". Sometimes further afield too!

Thursday, 24 December 2015

Bicester Wetland Reserve: Thanks everyone who completed a consultation form

Great response from so many of you to our request for people to participate in the Oxfordshire County Council consultation for the new ring road that threatens Bicester Wetland Reserve.

Alan Peters has also done a great job raising awareness though local media, not least on BBC Oxford, and this has stimulated a lot more interest from people living locally. Many of you have encouraged friends, colleagues and family to participate. Thank you very very much: it does make a big difference.

As soon as we get any more feedback on the outcome of the consultation I will let you know.

Plans for the new country park north of Banbury started to gain some momentum last week. Cherwell District Council have contracted Ryder Landscape to put together a Masterplan for the area and and to start the planning process they organised a "scoping" workshop with stakeholders. They have also been out and about surveying the site.

The area offers considerable potential for wetland enhancements, especially a decent sized patch of floodplain grazing marsh, and it was good to see this opportunity recognised around the group. I am also promoting the idea of at least part of the country park being designated as a local nature reserve.

Hopefully, more news on this over coming months.

I'll sign off with a lovely image from our recent trip to Japan. I'll trickle a few more images and highlights from Japan onto my blog over the festive period.